In the semiconductor industry, inspection microscopes are used for the examination and inspection of wafers, masks, and semiconductor modules during the various phases of their production. Inspection microscopes are for the most part largely automated. This encompasses, inter alia, automatic transport and handling systems for the modules or wafers to be examined, as well as an automatic focusing capability.
Inspection microscopes are described, for example, in the German patent documents DE 39 17 260 “Wafer inspection device” and DE 197 42 802 C1 “Microscope stand for a wafer inspection microscope.”
The optical resolution capability of a microscope depends on the wavelength of the illuminating light and the numerical aperture of the objective. The smaller the feature to be resolved, the shorter the illuminating light wavelength that must be selected, since the numerical aperture of the objectives cannot be increased indefinitely. For dry objectives, numerical apertures of no more than 0.9 to 0.95 can be attained. The size of the features on wafers for highly integrated circuits necessitates the use of ultraviolet light. Illuminating wavelengths between 248 nm and 365 nm are common at present.
Standard objectives are operated in the visible region of the light spectrum, i.e. in the spectral region from 400 nm to 800 nm. Standard objectives are unsuitable for applications with ultraviolet light, since the transmittance of standard objectives decreases dramatically the further into the ultraviolet the selected wavelength lies.
An objective that is achromatic in both the visible and the ultraviolet region is disclosed in the Japanese Patent having publication number JP2000105340 A. This objective is made of at least three different types of glass that contain barium fluoride, the lens elements being assembled into several groups of which the first, second, and fourth have positive refractive power while the third group has negative refractive power.
Irradiation with extremely short-wave ultraviolet light results in damage both to standard objectives and to special objectives that were in fact manufactured for the ultraviolet region. In standard objectives this damage is attributable, inter alia, to phototropic effects in the glass that cause a diminution in transmittance due to chemical modification of the glass structure. Damage of this kind is often reversible. Objectives designed specifically for the ultraviolet region are usually fabricated from quartz glass or calcium fluoride. Glasses made of these materials exhibit high transmittance in the ultraviolet region and are not modified by ultraviolet light. Irreversible damage nevertheless also occurs in these special objectives just as in standard objectives, becoming evident as gradual clouding, decreased transmittance, and degraded resolution. These difficulties have hitherto not been completely understood.
An additional difficulty occurs when an inspection microscope is equipped with an autofocus system, in which an autofocus light beam is coupled into the beam path of the inspection microscope and focused by the objective. Focusing is then performed, for example, by ascertaining the contrast of the image of the light reflected from the component being examined, using a four-quadrant photodiode. Since the inspection microscope must be usable in both visible light and ultraviolet light, the wavelength of the autofocus light must not lie within those regions in order to prevent the measurement operation from being influenced by light of the autofocus system. Since the sensitivity of semiconductor detectors is highest in the red to infrared region of the spectrum, it is advantageous to select an autofocus wavelength in that region. The optical properties of objectives are generally different for light of differing wavelengths; this complicates evaluation of the autofocus system signals, which as a result are erroneous.